344 J.-A. PEMBERTON
That governments had not stood by this principle, in Zimmern’s view,
was in part because they were unscrupulous; in part due to a lack of diplo-
matic vision such that they failed to understand that the Hue and Cry was
‘practical politics’; and in part because of public opinion from which states-
men had shielded the ‘unpleasant facts’ regarding treaty obligations.^371
Zimmern observed that many well-meaning people felt that the
Versailles treaty had been unjust and that it was Britain’s ‘duty’ to com-
pensate for this injustice through extending a ‘hand of friendship’ to
Germany. Such a gesture, Zimmern declared, was utterly futile after the
Nazis came to power as they showed ‘no signs of reciprocating our senti-
ments and of adopting a conciliatory policy, either at home or abroad.’^372
At the same time, Zimmern questioned whether or to what degree
the British really had suffered from an attack of conscience in relation
to Germany. He pointed out that the treatment of the Armenians, who
had fought alongside Britain and its allies against Turkey and who had
been promised unequivocally ‘liberation from Turkish rule,’ had been
‘shameful’. He noted that when Mustapha Kemal Atatürk rallied his peo-
ple in opposition to the Treaty of Sèvres which was intended to embody
this pledge, Britain and the United States ‘lost interest and left the
Armenians to their fate.’ Yet, Zimmern asked, *‘how many of us really
do feel ashamed about it?’ The truth, he suggested, was that Armenia
unlike Germany, was too weak and poor to get its grievances heard.^373
Zimmern then posed the question as to whether Britain’s putative bad
conscience, was really only a ‘certain timidity’ or ‘perhaps prudence’ in
the face of a Germany ‘rearmed and menacing,’ prepared to overthrow
the established international order and ‘enforce her claim to what she
entitles dynamic justice.’^374
Anticipating an aspect of Carr’s analysis, Zimmern posed the question
for his readers as to whether upholding the existing order and Britain’s
place within it or yielding to Germany’s ‘demand for dynamic justice,’
was a ‘pure question of force against force’ on which morality had no
bearing. In responding to the question he posed, Zimmern conceded
(^371) Ibid., 210, 424; and Zimmern, Spiritual Values and World Affairs, 119.
(^372) Zimmern, Spiritual Values and World Affairs, 84–5, 105.
(^373) Ibid., 87–89.
(^374) Ibid., 98–99.